Here is your essay on the major challenge faced by Arya Samaj movement in India.
Arya Samaj is a Hindu reform movement founded in India by Swami Dayananda in 1875. He was a sannyasi (renouncer) who believed in the infallible authority of the Vedas. Dayananda advocated the doctrine of karma and reincarnation, and emphasized the ideals of brahmacharya (chastity) and sanyasa (renunciation). There are approximately 3-4 million followers of Arya Samaj worldwide.
Dayanand formed many Gurukuls as part of the Arya Samaj educational programme. The first D. A.V. College was founded in Lahore to commensurate Dayanand’s memory after his death in Ajmer in 1883. This institution became a focal point of national education in the country. The idea of the Founders of Lahore College was to induce the scientific temperament in the students without uprooting them from their spiritual, cultural, religious moorings.
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Till then only the British Government or foreign Christian missionaries had established such English medium colleges. However, some followers of Dayanand e.g. Swami Shardhanand did not agree with the medium of instruction and set up a parallel institution called Gurukul in Kangri, near Hardwar in U.P. which also flourished.
It was based on the ancient ideal of a residential school where teachers and students lived as a family. Today Gurukuls in India number over 50, most of them in Haryana. There was a dispute between both parties as each claimed to be the genuine followers of Dayanand. The educational centres were completely free of Government control and considered to be anti-British.
Again it was the politically moderate wing of the Arya Samaj represented by the D.A.V. College movement which made a greater impact on the educated middle class. This middle class was at the vanguard of the Indian Renaissance in the 19th century. The Arya Samaj’s educational policy was thus totally at variance with that of Lord William Bentinck and that of the Christian missionaries which was to make either clerks for administration or converts into Christianity.
Three Challenges to Hinduism:
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The Hindu religion grew and flourished and had the capacity to absorb any new religious force and its perpetuity was taken for granted. But trice in recorded history, it had faced decisive challenges once from Buddhism and Jainism, later from Islam and lastly from Christianity.
Arya Samaj has performed an important social mission during the third and latest crisis in Hinduism which came with the British rule. Arya Samaj successfully stopped the tide of mass conversions to Christianity. In defending Hinduism Arya Samaj had played a significant role.
Arya Samaj and Emancipation of Women:
Women, like Harijans have been called ‘Slaves of the slaves’. In the British era men were the slaves of the British and women were the slaves of these enslaved men. Women had few rights, little freedom and were rarely considered as equals.
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Dayanand, the founder of Arya Samaj was among the pioneers of women’s rights and equality in modern times. He advocated the equality of sexes. Dayanand encouraged women to study the Vedas – a revolutionary step at that time. They were allowed to recite “Gayatree” mantra while tradition did not permit them this privilege. Dayanand forcefully put forward the argument that women “rishis” account for 200 mantras in the Rig-Veda alone. He also carried on a crusade against child marriage.
Dayanand ordained that no girl should be married till she was 16 and boys should marry at 25 or above. Thus he confronted the so called ‘Shastric’ injunction that, if a girl had her menses in her father’s house, the father and brother would go to hell. This idea was ridiculed by Dayanand. His argument was why should anyone go to hell because of a natural function.
Dayanand’s stand was that men or women should marry only once. For a young widow, his prescription was for ‘Niyoga’, rather than widow marriage. To him “Niyoga” meant temporary union with the dead husband’s brother or other kin to accepted by the Aryas; Dayanand in a true democratic spirit did not press his point. In fact, Arya Samaj in the Punjab advertised for and arranged some widow remarriages and Dayanand acquiesced.
Arya Samaj took up the cause of and improved education in general and women’s education in an impressive way. It has organized a network of schools and colleges in the country both for boys and girls where education was imparted in the mother-tongue. Dayanand Anglo-Vedic (D.A.V.) colleges were founded. Some of the Conservative Arya Samajis were of the opinion that educations imported in these colleges were not sufficiently Vedic in character, therefore in the leadership of Munshi Ram the Gurukul at Hardwar, where education in its method and content was given in the ancient Vedic manner. Being the pioneer in opening women’s schools, colleges and Gurukuls, Arya Samaj founded the first Kanya Mahavidyalaya in Jalandhar in 1896.
Politics and the Arya Samaj:
Dayanand was not just a social religious reformer. He was also a forerunner in the national and political awakening of India. The Arya Samaj was founded in 1875 a decade before the Indian National Congress. Dayanand had prepared the ground and declared that foreign government is no substitute for self-rule.
Lala Lajpat Rai has mentioned that the British had always viewed the Arya Samaj with suspicion. This often took the form of deportations prosecutions etc. of its members. The Arya Samaj was considered a seditious body. Members were dismissed from civil and military service solely on the grounds that they were members of the Arya Samaj.
The open declaration of the desire for political freedom at a time when jailing was common for such utterances showed a great deal of moral courage from its members. The Arya Samaj however always mentioned it was a religious, social and cultural organization.
In bringing about the transition of the loyalist character of the Indian National Congress to a mass political movement (moderate to radical approach) by Mahatma Gandhi, Arya Samaj Movement played a significant role as admitted by Dr. Rajendra Prasad the first President of India. The Congress also took over most of the social reforms as advocated by the Arya Samaj as part of the National Movement.
The Arya Samaj stands on political freedom and socio-cultural changes was indicated when the Congress adopted the removal of untouchability, the emancipation of women, and other reforms. A large number of the members of Arya Samaj became active supporters of Mahatma Gandhi. However, the Arya Samaj remains away from power politics and is a social movement. It is a non-political organization.
According to D. Vable, the independence scenario saw the inroads of power politics into the Arya Samaj. While in 1915 it was on the rise subsequently from 1920 onwards, as the Congress became popular under Gandhi, and it began to decline. The political resurgence of the pre-independence days much reduced its influence.
Further the influence of Hinduism also threatened its very identity. At present 65 years or so after the warning given by Lala Lajpat Rai the Arya Samaj faces its own erasure by Hinduism, which it once purported to defend. The Arya Samaj in fact would do well to think of its own identity, rather than defend the Hindus.
Swami Dayanand and Arya Samaj movement have contributed in the National movement in the following ways:
1) Support of the Hindi language
2) Swadeshi and Khadi were supported
3) Opposition to salt taxes, was agreed upon and supported.
Some critics have dubbed Swami Dayanand as a reactionary, looking back towards the dead past because he gave the call “Back to Vedas”. Yet Dayanand ushered in modem action in India just as Gandhiji did half a century later.